Abstract
For many civil and mining engineering structures, rock is the primary construction medium. At engineering scales, the material of interest is the “rockmass,” which contains sections of intact rock separated by a network of pre-existing joints (i.e. fractures). The mechanical behavior of a rockmass is defined by attributes of its intact rock (e.g. strength, stiffness, dilatancy), in addition to attributes of the pre-existing joints (e.g. orientation, surface condition, persistence). Testing representative rockmass specimens in the laboratory is uncommon because of its difficulty due to the required scale. The present study uses laboratory-scale rockmass analog specimens to study the effects that the pre-existing joints have on rockmass mechanical behavior. Smooth joints were sawed into decimeter-scale cylindrical specimens of Carrara marble. Specimens with two joint sets and two different degrees of jointing were tested. Specimens were loaded in compression using a triaxial apparatus under varying levels of confining pressure, and mechanical attributes were calculated including peak strength, residual strength, and pre-peak damage threshold parameters. At the higher end of confining pressures tested (12 MPa), the peak strength of the Carrara marble specimens was not influenced by the presence of pre-existing joints. These results were compared to the results of previous jointed specimen testing on the more brittle Blanco Mera granite. Notably, the drops in peak strength with increasing degrees of jointing were smaller for Carrara Marble than for Blanco Mera granite, which suggests that the Generalized Hoek–Brown failure criterion may not be appropriate to estimate rockmass strength for less brittle rocks.
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Data Availability
The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the study are available upon request. Please email the corresponding author I. West at igwest@mines.edu.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to extend their sincerest gratitude to Dr. Annalisa Bandini for coordinating the purchase of the Carrara marble used in this study, as well as Cave Focolaccia, the quarry that provided us the rock. Additionally, the authors would like to thank the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Contract Reference No. RTI2018-093563-B-I00) as well as ERDF EU for funding part of this study.
Funding
This research was funded in part by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation [Contract Reference No. RTI2018-093563-B-I00] as well as the European Regional Development Fund for the European Union (ERDF EU).
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design, as well as editing of the manuscript. Laboratory materials were created by Manuel Gonzalez-Fernandez and Isabella West. Laboratory data was collected and analyzed by Isabella West. Leandro Alejano performed laboratory supervision. Data manipulation and visualization was performed by Isabella West, Gabriel Walton, and Leandro Alejano. The paper was written by Isabella West, with contributions from the rest of the authors. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
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Appendix A—Laboratory Triaxial Data
Appendix A—Laboratory Triaxial Data
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West, I., Walton, G., Gonzalez-Fernandez, M. et al. Mechanical Behavior of Intact and Increasingly Jointed Marble Laboratory Specimens. Geotech Geol Eng (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10706-024-02815-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10706-024-02815-3